


Save Rock and Roll

by ShadowHaloedAngel



Series: Soldier's Songs [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death, Cold War, Death, F/M, Gen, M/M, Not Winter Soldier Compliant, Psychological Torture, Redemption, Save Rock and Roll, Songfic, Suicidal Thoughts, Torture, Violence, War, Which is also kind of heartbreaking, World War II, crisis of self, identity crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-17 23:43:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1407010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowHaloedAngel/pseuds/ShadowHaloedAngel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of Bucky Barnes, from joining the US Army, through Hydra, Red Room, blood and fire, to SHIELD, Steve, and the end of it all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Where Did The Party Go?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deployed to Europe, Bucky finds himself remembering how things used to be in order to find the strength to face this new reality. Back in America everything was girls, drinking, dancing, smoking, laughing... parties with his best friend. Now it's mud and endless shooting.

"A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H...I got a gaaaaalll in Kalamazoo..."

His voice sounded out, and the other men of the 107th chuckled, a few of them joining in. It was alright to sing here, safe behind their own lines for the moment at least. None of them were quite sure where the line was, but it was far enough, and if the sarge wanted to start singing none of them were going to put up too much of a fight. At least he had a decent enough voice, certainly made a change from sometimes. Still, picking the hits at least perked them up, made the miles disappear under boots that didn't always fit properly, and made the rain and mud a little more bearable.

Admittedly this was a stretch from reality - it seemed pretty damn unlikely that a kid from Brooklyn would have a girl in Michigan, for all that if anyone would, it would be Sergeant James Barnes. He had a way with women the uniform had only enhanced, and they were pretty damn grateful for it at times when he could charm a hot bath or two, maybe a little food or illicit booze out of the few civilian women they bumped into every so often. 

He didn't actually have much more of a success rate than the rest of them, but the easy smile and baby blue eyes often made it seem that way. He could have tumbled French peasant girls across the length and breadth of the country, not to mention a couple of English dolls if he'd tried... but he never tried too hard. A dance, a kiss, a casual flirtation, and that was enough. He'd grown up surrounded by too many women to think of doing anything that might put them at risk. Mutual fun was one thing but destroying a woman's reputation was something different and a risk he wasn't prepared to take.

As far as his comrades in the 107th could tell, Bucky Barnes was a young kid still living in the parties he'd left behind in the bright lights of Brooklyn. Nothing seemed to get to him, not the cold, not the incessant shelling, not the blood, the fear, the adrenaline... somehow after every action he would still be smiling through whatever stains he'd acquired that day, ready with a quick joke or some kind of quip that would at least get them moving long enough to clean up and fall into bed.

~*~

It was a pretty good mask. Bucky had to congratulate himself on that, but the problem was, once you'd started off being a certain kind of guy, it was impossible to stop. People came to rely on you, on the guy you'd shown them before everything went to hell. He was the guy who smiled, got people moving... they'd sent him out as a sergeant, and he seemed to have enough ability to lead and unite men that it was a good starting point for him. Still, even he got tired of acting sometimes.

The last time he'd sung that song had been back in England in one of the dances at the local army base they'd been stationed at before they crossed the channel. A couple of girls had begged him for a little entertainment and he'd been too shameless and a little too drunk to stop where discretion might have been the better part of valour. 

The whole room had stunk of the smoke that hung heavy in the air, mixed with the girls' perfume. He was pretty sure one of them had been wearing a red dress but he couldn't swear to it, and anyway, it really didn't matter now he was over here.

Over time a lot of the girls blended into one, an indistinguishable nothing-face he couldn't have picked out if he tried, and the memories did nothing to get him through the nights. He didn't have a sweetheart back home to think about or write dirty letters to, not like some of the other guys. He had Steve but that wasn't... that was different. Steve was like a brother, and god knew he had enough siblings that one more wouldn't make any difference. He felt responsible for Steve, always had done since they'd been kids and he'd sent a group of boys running off before scraping the blond off the sidewalk. 

They'd grown up together, kicking their feet, starting, winning and ending fights, talking about the future and how things were going to be. They were determined to be different to the men they saw, whether the ones in suits (so much rarer now than they had been a couple of years before) or the ones who drank away their paychecks. They wanted to be heroes together, to make a real difference in the world. When war came, Bucky knew he had that chance but that Steve would never be fit enough. He was kind of glad in a way because his best friend was a physical wreck, and at least this way hopefully he'd be safe when Bucky couldn't protect him anymore. He knew he shouldn't be glad that people were fighting and dying, but being a soldier was a chance for glory, and besides, it was a job, a purpose. There was no employment around these days and so he'd take what he could get even if it was this. Food, bed, uniform... it could have been so much worse, and he had a little money he could send home to his mother once a month.

He wondered if Steve was doing any better with him gone, and then held his head higher, starting in on the chorus, singing louder to block out the thoughts he didn't want to have. He missed his family, he missed Brooklyn, he missed the way things had been even though it hadn't always been great. That didn't change the fact that he would have given all of that up in a second to have his best friend here by his side where he belonged.

Steve was the opposite of him in so many ways. It wasn't just that he didn't have the first idea how to talk to girls, but he was short, blond, physically small... and brave in ways Bucky knew he never could be. If he'd been born in a different body, at a different time, Steve probably would have been a hero. As it was he was a little guy with a heart much much bigger than he was, and Bucky had come to view himself as Steve's protector over the years. God knew the kid needed one. Sure, Bucky wasn't exactly angel material or anything like that, but this was something he could do. 

He didn't believe in liberty the same way Steve did - to hear the kid talking about it you'd have thought it was some concrete concept rather than an ephemeral ideal that tended to twist in the hands of those who wanted to manipulate it for their own purpose. He believed in something, though, even if he couldn't explain what, and he would fight for good against evil even if it meant laying down his life. He just did his best not to read the papers and dwell on what could happen to him.

If he died, his family would manage somehow, and they'd make sure Steve was looked after. To be honest, the thought of leaving Steve gave him more pause than anything else. He'd been defending the guy for too long, standing up for him, wiping away the smears of dirt and blood and protecting him from himself for ten years now at least. It wasn't that he thought Steve couldn't take care of himself, it was just that Bucky knew he wouldn't. Most people took the principles of equality to apply first to them and to the people they loved before they applied to everyone else. Steve didn't seem to understand that, didn't see the world that way, and there were times he wanted to hit his head against a wall. Or preferably Steve's head, except it had already been proven countless times that it was impossible to beat any kind of sense into the kid.

Still, even after he'd been deployed, first to England and then on to France and mainland Europe, he consoled himself with memories of how it had been. Smoke-filled bars where men and women mingled, talked, joked, drank... the smell of menthol cigarettes hanging over everything. He remembered red lipstick and laughter like music, all the girls he'd met... and the friends he'd introduced to Steve. He always tried to make sure the kid had a chance, even if Steve never took it. He remembered that one girl who looked like a film star, the way she'd kissed Steve's cheek and he'd blushed to match the lipstick... and it made him smile, even when it was raining and his feet were blistered, shoulders aching from the weight of his gun.

The uniform had been fine indeed before he had been shipped out, and he'd been proud to wear the badge of Steve's dad's regiment. Steve was a brother enough that it felt like the right thing to do for a friend who would never be able to carry on that legacy himself.

These days it was tattered, muddy, worn, but he had no time to do anything about the rips or missing buttons, about the stains ground into the material so deep he was sure he could feel them indelible on his skin even when he got the chance to shower.

Whenever he needed a reason to carry on though, something to carry him through the dazed moments of another advance, another raid, another battle... it wasn't his mother, his sisters, or any of the girls he'd kissed whose faces drifted across his mind. It was the kid from Brooklyn who was too dumb to run away from a fight. And on those nights he would go to sleep with menthol in his nose, smoke in his eyes, and laughter like music in his ears, blocking out the shooting that never seemed to stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9hESWfeXG0  
> http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/falloutboy/wheredidthepartygo.html


	2. The Phoenix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve's transformation at the hands of Erskine and Stark.

It was natural enough to view all German refugees with suspicion. If the stories of persecution were true, it made sense that they were running, but there was little way to be certain whether people were who they claimed to be, particularly for those who had had to escape on false papers. Doctor Abraham Erskine had been vouched for by a couple of American academics who knew his work, but even so there were people who doubted his claims.

It couldn't be doubted, though, that if what he said was true, then his research would change the whole world. That did raise the question of whether or not it was ethical - people were becoming increasingly squeamish about things like that, but it was a gamble they had to take. If it paid off, then so much the better, if not then a single test case could be disappeared easily enough, passed off as some kind of training accident that resulted in a closed casket funeral. The government had ways of making sure people didn't ask too many questions after all, and while the war was benefiting the economy for the moment there was a definite trade off and they had to pay close attention to public opinion, not prepared to risk bad press which would jeopardise their political careers, let alone the moral objections there could be against Hitler's apparent conduct.

The war was raging on and they were losing men, ground, resources, it was getting to the point where a miraculous solution would be necessary and out of desperation they had turned to Doctor Erskine's research, prepared to secretly fund an experimental program to see whether it could provide the results they wanted without being unnecessarily weighed down by ethics when all ethics were doing in this case was inordinately drawing out conflict and standing in the way of human progress. It was easy enough to set such ideals ablaze when the fires of war burned high.

~*~

Nobody understood why Erskine had picked Steve Rogers, and most of the assembled panel viewed the small man with some disdain, muttering about the faith they had put in this madman's research, the taxpayer's dollars that had been wasted and the worrying chance of this all being exposed. Erskine himself had never wavered in his decision, and he carefully helped Steve onto the bed while others bustled around making preparations.

"Are you ready to go to war, Steven?" he asked softly, and Steve hesitated a moment before he answered.

"I don't see that there's any other way Doctor. This isn't a chance I ever thought I'd have. If it doesn't work and I die then I'm no worse off than if I'd never tried this at all because at least I tried to help. If it does work... then I guess I'll get to put on a uniform for real... get... suited up for battle."

"You'll put on your war paint and wear your stripes soon enough Steven. Maybe they'll even give you officer rank."

"I don't really care what rank I get sir. No offence or anything, I just want the chance to fight. I don't like bullies... and from what I hear, old Adolf's the worst kind of bully because he's not just doing it because he craves power, he's doing it because somewhere along the line he's become absolutely, utterly convinced that he's right. And the truth is that nothing can change that kind of conviction... it's like a rot, it sets in and poisons someone from the inside out, the problem is that he's managed to poison a whole nation because of it and that just doesn't sit right with me. No offence."

"None taken, I assure you..." Erskine smiled, swabbing Steve's upper arm clean, his softly accented words oddly comforting as Steve fought down the panic tightening his chest which he knew would have him choking sooner than later if things didn't move along a little faster.

The Doctor stepped away to make his little speech to all the important people who'd come along to watch what would hopefully be his transformation... it could equally well be his death, but that was something he couldn't afford to worry about. Instead he focussed on the pulse rushing in his ears, keeping his breathing steady as everything seemed to slow and swim around him. Waiting was always the worst part, particularly when it was as nerve wracking as this. He always felt like things were moving in slow motion around him, muffled, blurred... and he had never been sure if that was because that was what happened, or if it was just a part of all the conditions he'd suffered from over the years. Realistically speaking it made no difference either way and he was powerless to change it, so it wasn't worth worrying about.

He wished Bucky was here, though if he was honest with himself, Bucky would never have let him do this. He was adamant that there were other ways Steve could serve his country, but Steve didn't want to do that. They were lesser, safer... just as important to the war effort maybe, but there was no reason he had to judge the risk all the other young men were taking. This was the best chance he had of getting out there. Maybe if it worked then he'd be able to fight alongside Bucky again, they'd be reunited. That was what he really hoped for. He wanted to be in the 107th like his dad, he wanted to fight with his best friend just like old times. Without Bucky he felt like he was missing a limb. In an attempt to stave off the terror that was beginning to paralyse him, he started singing in his head, trying to hear Bucky's voice and focus on that instead. Bucky had always loved singing, and the girls seemed pretty fond of it too. Some of Steve's favourite memories were the times Bucky used to sing just for him. As they'd both got older those times had become rarer and rarer but...still, they were talismans against times like this.

Erskine crossed back over to him and inserted a needle into his arm. Steve winced slightly against the sting, but forced a smile anyway.

"That wasn't so bad."

"That was penicillin."

Steve felt his stomach turn over as the mechanism around him came to life and he was suddenly imprisoned. Liquid was forced into his veins, burning, consuming him till he could barely breathe, barely think, and he was screaming, he knew he was screaming and he couldn't stop it... it had gone wrong, it must have gone wrong and he would never see Bucky again and Bucky would never know how he died and he would never forgive him... and Erskine was yelling to shut it down but he couldn't let go, couldn't stop now he was so totally consumed. If there was any chance that this might work he had to take it. He couldn't be responsible for the failure of what might be their only chance.

"No! I can do this!"

The lights grew brighter and it was like he was separate from a body which was too agonising to hold him anymore.

When the machine came down he was floating on a cloud of endorphins, adrenaline... panting and suddenly oxygen filled his lungs and it was all he could do to even think straight. Never in his life had he been able to breathe so deeply before. He would have been happy to just lie there for a while and breathe it all in, feel with limbs that weren't subject to random aches, experience the world through a body that worked with hearing that felt as keen as a bird's and eyes which no longer blurred unaided.

Howard and Erskine helped him down and when he stood up straight, staring around, he realised how different the world looked from this angle. It was completely new and very disorientating. He couldn't place the way Peggy looked at him, understand why she touched him... and he knew it was a stupid answer but when she asked him how he felt literally all he could think of was taller. There was hardly room in his brain for more than one thought at a time as he adjusted to this new body and all these sensations he had no frame of reference for.

And just as he was starting to get the hang of everything, the world exploded and the man who had transformed him from a 90lb weakling was lying on the floor, blood seeping from him. There was nothing Steve could do, even now, even in this body he couldn't protect the people he loved and it felt like a kick in the teeth. He could feel his heart breaking, and as Erskine touched his he felt a renewed determination never to forget the faith this man had had in him. He would not abuse his power, he would not become a bully... but this was something which could not be forgiven and he would not just let it slide. 

He chased, feeling like a child driving a tank... this body was so large and unwieldy and suddenly his muscles could do everything he asked of them and he delighted in pushing them to new limits. He couldn't judge corners so well anymore apparently, but that would come with time, and for the moment he just had one goal: chasing down the man who had gunned down a genius feet from him, defeating the threat which had struck so close to home, and find his place in this war effort he could finally be a part of.

He was barely thinking, reacting instinctively... the car was racing away but he knew these streets, and swerved down a shortcut, leaping the fence which had always towered above him before. He was getting away, he had to answer for what he'd done, there had to be consequences and he was getting away... suddenly the car had stopped and there was a child, a group of children, innocent civilians and a man with a gun... his mind was racing, calculating things he had learned the hard way over the years. Angles, distances, probabilities... and there were bullets.

He grabbed the nearest thing he could find to use as a shield, to give himself any kind of protection. He always reacted defensively, though this was the first time he'd used a car door for any kind of shelter, let alone been able to carry it. 

He had been too slow, the gun was pointed at the child, he was aiming at the /child/ and there was nothing Steve could do except throw up his hands... and it worked. 

His first instinct was to follow the victim, heart pounding in his chest but never making him light-headed or short of breath. No, he was strong now, healthy, and whereas this would have killed him a few short hours before, now he was revelling in the exertion.

The kid could swim, the kid could be fine, and so without a second's hesitation he dived into the harbour, swimming strong and fast, smashing through the window and throwing the shooter back to dry land, wincing at the crash of breaking glass.

They needed answers, he needed answers, he had to know why this had happened, why someone had killed Erskine... 

"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place!"

The man's features, once passably handsome, twisted in the ugliness of death, and Steve was left on the side of the dock, shivering slightly in a tshirt which was sodden, clinging to this new body he hardly recognised. His head was spinning, and he was coming to the realisation that the world had shifted under his feet. Evil had struck close to home, and he was transformed into the man he had always been in his heart... but there was no-one to thank. That chance had been taken away from him, and now he had no way of knowing where his path would lead. He only hoped it was to the war, maybe even to Bucky. To a chance to fight for his country and to do what was right. 

HYDRA had struck, hoping to disable America's best hope before that war could even begin... but they had been too late to stop his own creation, and now it was personal too. Now he had Erskine to avenge. 

Head held high, he returned to the broken open base and awaited orders. Everything was chaos, broken glass and blood, people running everywhere... but he could wait. He would only be in the way if he tried to do anything else. His muscles burned, but it was pleasant, satisfying in the strangest way, and he settled to the side to process everything that had happened, to find out what was going to happen to him now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hDZbroaQDc  
> http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/falloutboy/thephoenix.html


	3. Just One Yesterday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's time in Hydra's clutches starts to change him in ways he cannot understand, or bear to think about.

His mind was racing, anything, anything to distract him from the pain, the questions, the drugs which toyed with his mind and that damn machine which never failed to drag screams from his lips.

Training had never prepared any of them for this, but as long as he was here, as long as he could hold out, then they weren't doing this to anyone else, they weren't doing it to any of his men, to his friends. He could withstand this for them, he could hold on. He was used to this. He was used to taking beatings for friends, he'd taken enough for Steve, even if they hadn't all been ones Steve knew about. He kept on stolidly repeating his name and number, name and number, name and number... that was all they had been told to give up, and saying anymore could mean lost lives even though he didn't know anything, didn't know enough. He wasn't senior enough for that kind of information, but he was the highest ranking one left of the man they'd captured and they seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with him.

Nazis were one thing, Nazis they had been warned about, but Nazis were men, were human, and this... this was anything but human. This was the kind of mad science, the insanity and torture and sadism which was the stuff of pulp fiction novels and penny dreadfuls and things like that, not real life. This was like Frankenstein, only they hadn't had the decency to let him die before the operations began. 

Every day he was confronted with those two same faces, the two voices, the one which never spoke to him but followed orders and worked the machine, the machine that probed inside his mind and tore his soul apart, and the one who was always so perfectly, eerily calm... the one which was inhuman.

Every day he told them the same things: name and number, name and number, name and number.

This was not what he had signed up for, this was not what any of them had signed up for. This wasn't honourable fighting, this wasn't even war. This wasn't knives and bullets and guns and bombs and things they had been trained for... this was inside his mind and he whimpered every time it began, wondering if he would ever be able to get it out again. 

He tried to find a happy place every time he heard them coming... every morning when they took him from his cell and strapped him back on the bench, restrained with brutal efficiency for another round of something he didn't even have words for. He had started to notice that even when they let him down, he never stopped shaking. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a decent meal, a decent night's sleep... it was starting to drive him mad, and they knew it, it was deliberate, it had to be, he was certain... they knew exactly what they were doing, and he could not begin to understand why.

He held it together by forcing himself to think of happy memories... of girls in bars and dance bands playing, of nylon stockings and lipstick, and cigarettes. Of Steve, and how they'd grown up together, all the promises they'd made, and he hated that he couldn't keep them, hated that he wouldn't even have an honourable death, hated that the end was going to come here with less dignity than a dog when they left him gibbering and soiled and utterly, completely destroyed... because if he wouldn't give them what they wanted, they would destroy him for the hell of it, for the sheer pleasure, and he knew that. 

Sometimes they whispered it in his ear, told him that they wouldn't even allow him the release of death, told him he would have to endure forever and ever, like Prometheus, healing every day to let them start again, but his mind would shatter like a mirror into a thousand shards and his screams would be music to their ears as they repeated their sick games over and over again.

On the worst days, or the best, when he felt strongest of all and could feel beyond what they were doing, he fantasised about killing them. And he felt guilty for it. It wouldn't even be quick, they had long ago surrendered their right to any kind of mercy from him. But Steve would show them mercy, Steve might even let them live... Bucky didn't have it in him, not anymore, and he felt choked with tears at night as to where the man had gone who Steve had been so proud to know... he would be disgusted now and somehow that made it all worse. It wasn't as if Bucky was hanging on for Steve to come back. There was no way that would ever happen and he wasn't naif enough to believe it, but if he could get through this, through the war maybe, then some tiny little voice said everything would be alright and he'd be able to go home... maybe he'd even be discharged for this. This was injury, trauma, suffered in the line of duty... it wouldn't even be a dishonourable discharge but he could run away from all of this and hide, and try to forget even though he knew it was marked indelibly on his soul. None of this would ever go away. 

He was good at letting people down, he should have known, should have remembered rather than aspiring to anything better. Steve had been the first one to make him feel good, even if it was only good by association. Hanging around with someone like that, some of the brightness had to rub off on you eventually. The shine was well and truly gone now, maybe he'd buff up enough for superficial inspection, but Bucky was tainted and would never be the same. On the worst nights sometimes when his throat was so hoarse from screaming all day that he couldn't even croak, tears would flow down his cheeks and he'd stare at the blank ceiling, wondering if he was too broken now for even Steve to be friends with. Steve deserved better than this, better than broken, better than evil, better than tainted, but the thought of losing his best friend, even if it would be the right thing to do, was the fear which struck at the heart of him more painfully than any torture Hydra might have been able to devise. He could hold on forever, so long as he could keep lying to himself that one day he would see Steve again and be forgiven.

The longer it continued the more he doubted redemption would ever come for him. Something was changing, he could feel it, and could not explain it. He wanted to blame it on their experiments, their sick minds, their... their... he wanted to blame it all on them, and that hatred was starting to boil in his gut, to blacken and thicken and burn within him, even stronger in his veins than whatever it was they pumped into his body.

He could not understand it, but then he had never been put in a position before to feel such rage as this. He had not known how powerful an emotion anger could be, and the strength it could lend. Never before had he been able to comprehend how some people could wait for their revenge, could plot, and then execute cold blooded acts without hesitation or breaking sweat. It was something that he had encountered in the theatre of war; there had been a Nazi soldier captured by civilians when the rest of his unit had retreated, but none of them had stood a chance in hell of getting any coherent sound out of the twisted mass of bloodied flesh, let alone any information.

They'd all been sick to their stomachs, but the villagers had not batted an eye. Bucky did not know what had happened there, what had driven them to do such things... and he had snuck back in the night to put the poor bastard out of his misery. He might have been the enemy but he was a man all the same, a living creature who deserved mercy. He had been fond of the idea of mercy, and Steve had only made him feel more strongly about it. Mercy, justice, all of those virtues which seemed to be losing their place in modern society.

He was losing his grip on them now, losing his grip on reality, his sense of self in the face of the endless questions, the monotony of pain... but sometimes he questioned whether he really was losing it, or whether he was simply becoming aware of the fundamental truths of how the universe worked, how the rules didn't need to apply... never before had he gloried in the idea of hurting someone, of systematic torture, but with every day that went by it was the thought of Steve in equal measure with horrific fantasies of what he might do to his torturers given the chance which kept him going. He dreamed of tying them down on this thing where they had wasted so many hours of his life, one watching the other as they took turns; removing their teeth one by one, perhaps their fingernails for good measure... systematic destruction, like they had done to him.

They were feeding a well of rage inside him which he had not known existed, stoking the fires high, so high that one day it would burn them to hell, consume them utterly... and Bucky honestly no longer cared if that took him with it or not. The prospect of death was starting to seem like blessed relief, but this shift inside of him, the flashes of the person he had the potential to become, the monster he had never realised dwelt inside, unsettled him fundamentally, and he did not know if it would ever go away.

Today was different, today was different and he did not understand why but he was floating so high on the cloud of pain and adrenaline, the cocktail of drugs they pumped incessantly into his system during these sessions, that he still repeated his name and number by rote, desperate for the sound of his own voice, bare croak that it was, to reassure him that he was still human, still alive... they had grown up with stories of heroism and endurance, marvelling at the achievements of remarkable men and women. Bucky was starting to understand how some of them had come about. he did not know how or why he wasn't dead. He had wished for death often enough, though that was a weakness to which he would never confess. Perhaps those people had done the exact same thing, only to find that they had survived, and be left to pick up the pieces to reconstruct some kind of almost-life.

Almost-life would be good enough in the war. Afterwards, he wasn't sure, but there were enough who died at the front and came back home as shells that he would not be the only one. So long as he made sure to keep clear of girls and pretty smiles... so long as he said a proper goodbye to Steve before he disappeared, he would be able to end it all in peace and quiet without shame, or at least, enough without shame that there would be nobody to carry the burden he left of it.

He was losing himself, the good man he would once have recognised in the mirror, and turning into some creature of their own creation... but never could he silence the little voice that whispered the evil had always been inside of him and all they had done was let it out. What kind of person would willingly admit to or accept being so monstrous? It was a serpentine little voice though, and it whispered what he could do if only he would accept that power, that strength, and turn it outwards. For the moment, the memory of Steve's soft blue eyes, their trust, the way they lit up when they met his own... that was all that stood between him and the tidal wave of cold hatred which threatened to roll over him, and that tie was getting weaker every day.

A figure he appeared that Bucky could not recognise, and he stared straight ahead with unseeing eyes, wondering if there was some new torture to come... there had been shouting, screaming, shooting, explosions... they were noises he had not heard since before he had been captured and segregated away in that nightmare cell, or here in a prison of his own mind.

There was a voice, a new voice, it sounded the same, and the questions were different... he was being freed, shifted... and the room span around him, his stomach lurching with it and threatening to empty, though it had nothing left to reject.

His name, over and over again, but this time it was not him saying it, it was not rank and serial number...

"Bucky... Bucky..."

He swallowed, forcing down the bile in his throat, and looked up and down this figure wreathed in smoke and fire from outside, shining bright in his dimmed and hazy world. It looked like Steve had always been inside, it spoke with his voice... that meant it had to be an angel, surely... that must mean it was all over, but did that mean Steve was dead too? But Steve had never worn those clothes and he was fairly sure angels didn't have that patriotic a sense of fashion... was this Steve? Really Steve?

He licked his lips, searching desperately for moisture enough to ask the question, unsure whether he hoped it really was, or wasn't, so uncertain was he as to the kind of reaction he could accept from his best friend to the monster he had become.

"Steve?"

"I thought you were dead." 

That was Steve alright, the worry was the very picture of what his mother had sounded like when the two of them had been out late or gotten mixed up in something rough (so, every day).

He looked the figure up and down again, and forced something which might have resembled a shaky smile or might simply have been an ugly grimace, retorting with the best quip he could muster.

"I thought you were smaller."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSfKSUd31MM  
> http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/falloutboy/justoneyesterday.html


	4. Young Volcanoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fighting their way through Europe, Bucky finally feels like he's regaining a bit of control...but how long can it possibly last?

He was back in the old routine again, and he had never felt more alive... it was amazing what such proximity to death could do to the senses. They all felt they had come close enough to it as prisoners of war, prisoners of insanity... but he had been the only one to come back from the factory, the only one to survive the machine and the endless questions. 

The dark void still yawned within him but it was easy enough to ignore, to hide it, when finally he had a purpose again and something else to occupy his mind. He was a soldier, a member of the US Army... and whereas when he signed up the war had been distant headlines and a chance for glory, it was now more visceral than anyone could have imagined, more personal.

Steve wasn't cut out for merciless war, and it was just as well. Bucky understood what must have happened in that village, the blind, animalistic rage that drove men mad with bloodlust, took them beyond the urge to kill to utter destruction, desecration... it was like some sort of twisted survival instinct, but the threat was no longer immediate. Instead his body had been conditioned to believe that the threat was everywhere.

Most nights now, he woke screaming, with Steve beside him, always there, always willing to help, to see him through everything. Steve with a cool cloth to wipe the sweat from his brow and strong arms that held him to a warm chest. He had some idea what it must have been like when they were younger and it was the other way around. But he didn't object. There was something nice about being taken care of, being protected when for so long he had just been a protector.

That being said... well, he wasn't really fit to protect anyone, and it was a bit of a mystery why Steve was still there by his side. It wasn't as simple as the change within him and the monster which had been loosed from its chain. That was something he attempted to communicate through fevered ramblings when he was half awake and Steve startedhumming an old lullaby just to calm him. It was that Steve was different now. Steve didn't need him anymore, and that triggered a whole other host of fears. Not only was he broken, irreparably tainted by a darkness which had to be kept as far away from Steve as possible, but he was surplus to requirements. Steve was bigger, taller, stronger; Steve could take care of himself, and not only was he in the army now (and outranking Bucky - even if the moniker had originally been nothing more, the army had seen to his promotion pretty damn quickly after news of his solo rescue mission got around), but he had powerful friends. He was a national hero, a symbol... and there were people who were so much better equipped than Bucky to be the friends he needed beside him.

Still, while it lasted, Bucky was determined to make the most of it, and day by day his old smile returned a little more easily. It slipped away far more quickly than it ever had before too, but there was precious little that could be done about that. He just had to fight to hold onto what vestiges of his humanity were left after Hydra tore his soul apart. Now, at least, he could be certain that he was one of the good guys (not that he'd ever doubted it in the first place, but it was still nice to have some confirmation).

Hitler and Hydra had sent their poisonous little feelers into innocent countries, taking them over, poisoning them from the inside out and then sweeping in with the tanks and planes of the blitzkrieg before anybody had a chance to resist. The whole continent was turning black, and it was their job to cure it, to cut off the diseased parts, excise the rotten flesh like a surgeon, and help heal the wounds up.

The Howling Commandoes were a specialist unit at the forefront of everything now, mostly working behind enemy lines. Though they nominally had a whole chain of command, everyone knew that it was Captain Rogers who was the only man any of them would listen to. Despite it being his childhood best friend in that star-spangled uniform, Bucky was still kind of proud to be the man at his side, because as yet, Steve hadn't sent him away, hadn't said that Bucky didn't matter anymore.

They were fighting side by side, like they always had. They were together, young, powerful, free... they were away from the rules and laws and regulations, but Steve made sure that morally they never lapsed.

They tracked down Hydra bases, they hunted down roaming parties of the black clad soldiers, and starting cleaning up the countryside bit by bit. Of course, if it had just been them, there was a chance they would never be able to do it, but as they forged ahead, the regular army followed behind them. They were like the hounds, and the army was like the nets of a hunting party. The commandoes tracked down the game, maybe even killed some of it, but those who thought they had escaped would be trapped when the net closed in around them. It was a technique they had come up with together, and sometimes Bucky couldn't help but smile with tears in his eyes and a lump in his throat when he remembered using it with Steve to make sure his youngest siblings took their baths. Steve had always been good at helping him with responsibility like that, so that... that was something. That helped. Steve's eyes helped. The little touches, the brushes of contact which were innocent but increasingly frequent, Steve's willingness to sleep near him so he could be there when the nightmares hit... all of it helped, but no matter how strong his anchor was, Bucky knew he would never be able to forget, would never chain the beast again. 

For the moment he could forget and focus on the task at hand. He could focus on Steve, on his friends, on the rest of the Commandoes and their comradeship. Every fight they had sparked something new in him, a ferocity, but a feeling of release, relief... he'd heard about soldiers who had to kill to feel in control, and he knew what happened when they returned to normal life, but he didn't really want to dwell on that right now. It wasn't that he started feeling out of control between fights, it was just that every scrap they won, every HYDRA base they wiped out, seemed to return a little bit of the man he had been, like they had hidden fragments of his soul all over Europe and he was reclaiming them. He was doing good, even though he had thought for so long that they were making him into a monster. Maybe even monsters had a purpose sometimes. 

The Commandoes were young and wild and building up a fearsome reputation. They didn't have the same qualms as normal units. they would happily take on suicide missions and put their unique skill sets to good use. 

They could never have known quite how literal a suicide mission could be, until it cost them, within the space of a few days, their two commanding officers. It was a loss from which they would never recover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZvHkOAtUYQ  
> http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/falloutboy/youngvolcanoes.html


	5. Rat A Tat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Red Room have their perfect specimen for a new experiment, a former ally they can transform into the perfect weapon.

He could not remember much, and what he could remember was getting less and less by the moment. Everything was swirling in a sea of red. All he could see was red, all he could feel was red... he hadn't realised it was possible to feel colours before, but it was the best description, like he was hovering in some kind of stasis of pain. They were maintaining his condition - the transition was not an easy one, nor quick. The enhancement was simple enough, but he had to have surgery to repair the damage from the fall, not that he was aware of that.

There was nothing of his arm left worth saving, and even had there been, none of them had the skill to do it or the time to bother. Resources like that were scarce and there was no point wasting them on some anonymous American. The sniper rifle he was clutching had given them enough of a clue that it might be worth replacing the shattered limb, particularly if they were going to make... full use of him.

The Americans would believe him dead, it was perfect. A test subject that would be completely off the record, not missed by anyone, and not even one of their own countrymen. While they were nominally allies, the Great Man himself did not really trust the Americans, or the British. It was more an alliance of convenience, but the two of them had such little to lose. Neither of them had ever been invaded, neither of them had suffered the losses of Russia, and they were arrogant in it. Knowing that it was likely the friendship would turn into another war soon enough, there was a delicious irony in turning one of the Americans' own into what would be the ultimate weapon against them. 

He was unconscious, comatose, it was perfect... he did not fight the initial amputation, he did not fight the administration of the serum, but... the doctors insisted that he heal, at least in part, before they continued with the procedure. If he was going to die, there was no point in wasting their time, after all. 

But he pulled through, and that was when the screaming started. He had been confused, disorientated, looking around at them all and trying a few sentences of broken German and Russian they had studiously ignored.

He fought back when they fitted the gag into his mouth and started restraining him, almost pulling his new arm from its socket in his determination. The lead scientist had been pleased with that.

"He is ideal. There is a rage in him which nothing will remove, it is a resevoir of power as yet untapped which, in combination with his new strength, his new abilities, will make him the perfect assassin to bend to our will. He will have no compunction, no resistance, and he will not disobey... "

The man lying on the floor with his neck broken was quietly removed and the procedure continued. What was one death, after all? Nothing but proof that they were going down the right road, and the grunt was easily replaceable.

They wiped his mind and he screamed himself hoarse... and then they wiped it again, to be sure, and again. Every trace of the man he had been must be erased, never to be unlocked again. They needed the perfect blank slate, and he would provide it soon enough. Though he might try to resist them, he would not be able to keep up the fight forever. They had all the resources. They had drugs, poisons, food, water... he would submit, and eventually he would welcome the programming, he would welcome the outlet for that rage he had been keeping inside for so long. 

Everything he had been was ripped from him, subsumed into the blankness of their ultimate soldier, and every flash of memory which had once been his faded into darkness. 

When he slept there were images in dreams he could not remove, of a bright smile, and blue eyes which shone like the summer sky. There were sketches and brief snatches of English conversation and music and laughter which felt all at once completely foreign and absolutely familiar.

All he was left with was rage, and unswerving loyalty. He didn't care about blood on his hands, and his reputation was swiftly merciless. They rearmed him, and having shot through the centre of every target, he had proceeded to turn and do exactly the same to his guards. For practice, he had said. It had won him an instant promotion. 

He was the perfect weapon. Human enough to pass unobserved, if they concealed the ugly prosthetic, perfectly loyal, completely merciless. Provided they removed the desire for needless bloodshed there was nothing more that could be done, the problem was that it was not a hunger for blood or pain or fear which drove him, it was simply the fact that, to him, other human lives were as expedient as those of insects. He would never age, he would simply go on serving them until they decided it was time to terminate him when his use was at an end. He would become a symbol of the Soviet state, the perfection they were striving to reach, the tool of their superiority.

That was what they believed, but in what was left of his blackened, broken heart, the Winter Soldier knew that his only fight would be to survive.

While it was true that they had crafted the perfect weapon, and programmed him with loyalty to his masters and the Soviet regime, they had failed to comprehend an important aspect of a weapon, which is that the gun cares not whose hand is on the trigger, it will fire just the same anyway. There was a separation in him, a fundamental part that belonged to nobody. 

He did not socialise with the others in the base, though he was always perfectly cordial. He hungered for the next mission always, for the next opportunity they would give him to feel something in the numbness which paralysed him for hours at a time when they weren't looking. He lived for the fire and the blood, the smoke and the screams, they were what told him he was truly alive even as they ate away at him bit by bit from the inside.

He was alone in this new life, and there was nothing that would change it, and no particular reason for them to want to. What business was it of theirs whether or not he fitted in so long as he followed orders, so long as he did the job and did not subvert their control. There were those who whispered about it, unable to see past this unusual behaviour. Some of the men were disturbed by it and crossed themselves when they believed nobody was looking. If they were caught, the punishment would be harsh. There was no space for faith in the supernatural here, all they had to believe in was right in front of them, and what a figurehead they had for faith. Comrade Stalin was a great man, Comrade Stalin had all the answers, Comrade Stalin could do no wrong - he made the harsh but necessary decisions of a wise leader. Still they whispered that he was unnatural, doubting the orders which had come straight from the top and the skill which had executed them. Under Bolshevik rule, all were equal, but some were more equal than others, and the cannon fodder that whispered these things would have been incapable of reproducing them, so their opinions meant nothing. 

Soldier knew very little about this new world he had suddenly arrived in. He had no memory of before, and it stood to reason that he must have had some kind of life. Nobody came into the world two decades old with a metal prosthetic. They told him he was a war hero, dazzled him with tales of heroics he did not believe because he saw the tells in their eyes which gave him away, the fear they would never have for a soldier on their own side. 

He watched all the time, feeling somehow cut off from everyone, as if he were viewing them through a veil, or some clouded glass, as if he could look but not touch. He would never reach them, and occasionally he wondered idly what would happen if he tried - would they stay and try to feign calm and normality, or would they scatter like fish in a tank when someone tapped the glass, fleeing this new threat.

They knew he was a threat, recognised him, feared him, but they did not respect him. He was other. And that attitude drove him further away from them until he treasured the little moments of freedom he had, began to live for missions and everything that reminded him what it was to be alive. 

The men talked about what it would be like to grow old under the glorious reign of Comrade Stalin, but none of that made sense to Soldier. He had this feeling that he would never grow old at all. In order to grow old one had to live, and whatever this existence was, it was far from living. Besides, it was far more likely that he would die than that he would settle and marry one day as these others talked of doing. 

Instead he stayed in the shadows day after day as they grew longer, watching this life pass him by, watching, always watching, learning things he did not know which seemed second nature to these others. They had programmed him perfectly, but humanity was not perfect, and there were little touches that it was easy to overlook in such things. How to smile, when to smile... what friendship meant and how to pat someone on the back when they had done well or needed a little encouragement. They were not things it was felt he needed to know, after all, he was not human, he was a weapon. There had been those who were convinced he should simply be packed away between assignments, but for the moment at least he was proving to useful for that. Admittedly there was no guarantee that that would last, but while they had this ghost with a touch for destruction and a sniper's eye, it seemed foolish to waste time and resources on storage when he was quiescent enough.

In his own mind, though, Soldier knew that he did not know who he was, and that the only way to win the war for his survival was to avoid drawing attention to himself. He had no idea whether this was a war that it would even be worth winning, only that he had to try. Perhaps, if he tried hard enough, long enough, there might be some kind of redemption. He barely understood the definition of the word, but it echoed in his dreams with the rapping on the door of the past come back to claim him which woke him in a cold sweat every time. 

He had no name, no past, no soul... not even his mind was his own, but for the moment at least, there were some things they could not take away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC8nDOXzMYw  
> http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/falloutboy/ratatat.html


	6. My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark, (Light 'Em Up)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life as the Winter Soldier.

There was nothing quite like the thrill of a mission, the way it sent his neurons firing, awoke a mind which was so often lost in a dark mist of apathy and confusion. It gave him a purpose, a focus, something to hone in on... and once he had been given his target, they were as good as dead.

He was meticulous in his preparation, knowing that it was the little details which made all the difference. That was something that he wished would be better trained into the morons he was supposed to work with. Understanding the nuances of situations and lives and habits, planning for every eventuality meant the smallest chance of the mission going wrong, while allowing it to be tailored to its specific purpose. Was this just the removal of a threat, was it supposed to be a message to a group or individual, or even to the country as a whole? Was this something that had to be done quietly in the night, with poison, or with a knife and a doctor who would not look too closely? Or was this the complete conflagration of everything somebody had once been, everything somebody had once owned. There was a particular kind of satisfaction in those missions. It was misplaced, sick, perhaps, but still it remained. They had taken away his identity somehow, stripped him of all that had once defined him even if he knew it not now, and although he would never again understand whatever life had come before, he could remove other people from existence entirely. Erasing someone was so much more comprehensive than killing them, and if he erased enough people, there was a chance, albeit only a small one, that he would not be erased himself. That was what Soldier held onto in the deep watches of the night where there were only shadows and howling winds to keep him company.

They kept him caged, like an animal they freed only when it suited them, and who would always, always return to serve the hand that beat it. It reminded him of the animals in the gladiatorial fights of Ancient Rome. He had read about them once, a long time ago, though he was not sure where the memory had come from. They chose his targets, he hunted them down and devoured them; for show, for sport, for any purpose other than his own. That higher purpose was the prerogative of his masters to decide, and he was not privy to their decisions, only the results of them.

There was nothing that could redeem him now, no chance of some misplaced hope, though he could barely understand the concept anyway. He was toxic, and the entire game now seemed to be to infect and destroy as much of the world as possibe. He may have been a pawn in their schemes but he quite enjoyed it... and there were times when he liked to fancy himself a rook at least, on the giant chessboard that was this world his masters manipulated. He was unique, he had purpose. He did the dirty jobs that nobody else would dream of touching and he revelled in their destruction.

He was learning to live for the sharp tang of blood in his nostrils and the scent of smoke on the wind. Being in the heart of a fire he had set was the only time he could ever feel fully warm. He could hear the crackle of it burning in his ears, with all the screams conveniently silenced. He could remember the look in each of his victim's eyes as he had ended their torment. It was unlikely that anyone could lead such a tortured existence as his own, but still he would liberate them, and the vicarious freedom sent such a rush of pleasure, of adrenaline through him that it became addictive. That only served to enhance his already bloody reputation further.

It displeased his seniors. He was not meant to draw attention to himself, to them. He was meant to be quiet, to do the job, to stay out of the limelight... and that was in and of itself no issue. He had no interest in the limelight, only in the firelight, but it was that which exasperated them so most of the time. The leader had little use for glorious deaths which could only arouse suspicion and draw attention. He had never outright defied an order to be quiet, never chosen messiness when it was only brevity which had been asked of him.

Soldier mused on all these things as he walked through the dark dacha. It was an old building, this one, and it would burn easily, with the body of its owner on the bed, a slit throat staining sheets which had once been very expensive indeed. They were probably German plunder, most of the rest of the decoration was, and such theft was frowned upon these days. Soldier didn't care about the political details, only the ones which directly affected the assassination, and so he had studied the man, studied his routine in painstaking detail until he had known to the inch where he would be standing on the stroke of 11:31pm that night. There was no reason to keep this trash, no place to store it, and its destruction would send a message to the troops who had plundered and the black marketeers. No matter what had been acceptable during the war, this was a new day, and the brave new civilisation demanded new rules they would have to learn to obey.

Overlaid on the old scents of wood and polish was the sharp smell of petrol. As he strolled back along the main corridor, towards the front door, Soldier allowed himself a little smile, taking one last breath as he struck the match and let it fall, whooshing up around him in an arch of flames, heralding his exit like a demon from the pit of hell himself. Maybe that was what he was, or what he had become. Maybe that was why he had no past, no real name... they would give him no answer either way, but he would not put it past them to have summoned a demon of destruction for their dirty work.

Perhaps his reputation was deserved after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkIWmsP3c_s  
> http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/falloutboy/mysongsknowwhatyoudidinthedark.html


	7. Death Valley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The relationship between the Winter Soldier and Natalya Romanova, the girl who would become the Black Widow. Even creations can learn humanity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for underage sex (not graphic), references to sexual abuse of minors

It shouldn't have been possible to find a kindred spirit, here of all places. It should not have been possible to find a kindred spirit to one so broken, twisted and destroyed, and yet somehow, he had managed it.

Natalya Romanova was one of the Black Widow program candidates. She was outstanding in every way, but even though she evidently had a natural aptitude for these things, she refused to coast. Coasting would have been dangerous in a program like that. There were so many who were out to get you, it was not entirely unlike spending one's entire life living in a shark tank, or with big cats, knowing that at any minute they could turn on you and when they devoured you there would be no trace left that you had ever existed. Even blood was not forever as far as bureaucratic memory ran, for all that it stained the hands of those who did their dirty work.

She was younger than him, much younger, but she was sharp, and there was a flash of something in those eyes which had captured his interest and would not let him look away.

He was an obvious person to be involved in their training. He was the top assassin as far as the Kremlin was concerned, quite apart from being the prototype for their programming, their enhancement. They wanted him to teach them mercilessness, seemingly unaware that that was not a quality which could be taught. There were those in the program who had it and those who didn't. Those who did not would not last long, no matter what favours they did for the other instructors. There was no room for failure in Red Room.

She shared his bed more often than not, though many nights they would lie awake and talk, or take it in turns to sleep while the other kept watch. While they should have been safe in the base, neither of them trusted the others. That was one of the things that drew them together. Natalya's mind was far too keen for the restrictions they attempted to impose on it, and she absorbed knowledge like a sponge. She had her own agenda, and she knew how to manipulate people into forwarding it. More than once in the night she had woken to Soldier screaming in English, or scattered words in an American accent, but she had told nobody, sensing the value of this information and deciding to keep it to herself. He was a valuable ally, even more so if she could control him to her benefit without fear of him betraying her.

When he was with her, he felt flashes of what it might have been like to be human, and he in turn made her question everything they were teaching her. 

Sensing the bond between them, their superiors began assigning the two of them on missions together, hoping to better their most promising candidate for Black Widow status by offering her the chance to hone her skills with their top assassin. It worked even better than they could have dreamed, though there were dangerous signs of rebellion in them both. Wiping and reprogramming resolved those fairly easily, though the speed with which Soldier would re-establish links with her was fascinating given his previous tendency to withdraw from everyone and everything outside narrow mission objectives. If she had such power over him, then surely they could use her to control him. That was what they thought, anyway. 

When they were away from prying eyes, or at least, as much privacy as they could get, the two of them clung to each other which such ferocious determination it was almost animalistic. Neither of them understood it, neither of them had words for it, but there was a bond which remained unshakeable. It often took a physical form, whether that was sparring, or sex that was almost indistinguishable, which left them both with bruises, scratches, bite marks and a feeling of satisfaction which almost overwhelmed the emptiness inside of them. 

She grew into a young woman, and he was proud. His protection was limited, and as she became an agent in her own right they were less likely to get assigned together and there was less he could do to protect her. He knew somewhere inside that what they had done was not... right, that she was too young, that it was coerced... but the environment had left them little consequence, and where the others were often harsh, leaving girls bloodied and limping, he had done his best to introduce her to pleasures which she would be unlikely to experience, even when she worked as a seductress. In his experience far too many men were arrogant and unskilled in pleasuring women. Even if it would hurt for the rest of her life, he tried to draw some solace from the fact that he had given her good memories to hold onto. He did not understand where the doubts came from, but maybe they came from the same place as the names he did not recognise and the language he did not know. It was not quite love, but it was the closest either of their broken hearts and minds could manage. Tarnished souls without the emotional understanding to form that kind of bond but nevertheless there was something which held them together.

Every day they had, and every night, they knew could be their last. The whims of the rulers were unpredictable, mercurial, and as secrets of the state they would not even be granted a show trial but merely disposed of somewhere nobody would look. People were not in the habit of looking very hard for bodies here, there was too high a chance that they might find one. The knowledge only made them more determined to make the most of what they had, and in the shadows they spoke of wild dreams and secret promises which could never come true.

He found himself hoping that she would escape, build a better life than this. For all that she promised she would take him with her, or return for him if she had that chance, and he did the same to assuage her, he knew that if she left, he would likely be dead anyway. The best he could hope for was a merciful end, but almost anything would be merciful after what they had done to him already. There was nothing he had left to lose, and somehow that fuelled the fire inside him to encourage her escape. 

When her chance came, and when she took it, the last thing he had said to her was a request, rather than an order.

"If you succeed, do not come back for me. If you succeed, do not look back. You were meant for better things than this. Somehow we have survived this long Natalya, and perhaps I will be gone tomorrow, or perhaps I will endure till Mother Russia has crumbled or even beyond. But you have a chance to do better."

"I don't want to leave you."

"And yet you must. You will gain more from leaving than you ever could by staying."

"By staying I gain you."

"By staying, you lose everything."

The storm whirled, white and wild behind her as she stood silhouetted in the doorway, staring at him for a long moment.

"It is a heavy price to pay." her voice was soft, and he shrugged.

"There is no price in our lives which will not be heavy, but this one I will pay for you. Go. Taste real freedom for once in your life, it is crisper even than the Siberian snow. We are alive, even after everything we have seen, and whatever may come Natalya, this is the only chance you will get to fully live. If you turn back I will never forgive you."

She stood taller then, and he almost smiled, affection tinged with sadness in his eyes at her diminuitive form, old beyond her years. She set her jaw and nodded, once, not breaking his gaze.

"Farewell, Soldier."

"Goodbye, Natalya."

She turned and was gone in an instant, blending in. After a long moment, he got up and closed the door, on the storm and the past. For so long she had been the only thing which had let him feel anything at all... but she deserved better than a life trapped with him, and he had to hope she would have that now. He would sink back into the numbness. It was the only thing that would make life bearable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX50r4WRmRw  
> http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/falloutboy/deathvalley.html


	8. The Mighty Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soldier knew he could not be the best forever, but this was not how he had expected it to end

Somehow, subconsciously, he had always known this day must come. They said that no good thing lasted forever, and while the argument for this being the polar opposite of a good thing carried much more weight than its alternative, there was still something satisfying about being the best in the world. For a while, he had not been, though his name had still been spoken in fear. For a time, Natalya had been better than he, as he had always known she would be. Even after she had left Red Room and they had pursued her so persistently until the resources ran out and they had to shift their focus to ensure their continued existence, it was impossible to be a part of that underground world and not hear occasional whispers. So much of that work, particularly outside the major organisations, was based on reputation, on contacts and relationships. A girl with skills like Natalya belonged on the radar, even if it was only for the most select.

She had disappeared for a time, and he had been worried, though the programming dulled his senses enough that he could hide it. Occasionally there were flashes of her now, but they were different. She was evidently working for someone else, on a payroll rather than simply a mercenary. He knew her well enough to be certain that this place would not be another Red Room, unless she was driven by need or coercion, but that seemed unlikely with the years of experience she had under her belt, and her own determination. 

In all honesty, it was probably inevitable that they should meet again. The circles of espionage and assassination were not that large, and there were many vested interests which overlapped and collided.

He had not expected to find her mixed up with SHIELD, and he had not expected the loyalty she showed them. This was motivated by much more than simple money, this was a degree of sacrifice which not even the USSR could have expected from her despite all its tricks and brainwashing. It was all the more poignant because it was her choice, and that was what mattered. The flash of red hair, the set of her jaw against whatever odds came against her, the brief quaver in her lips before they settled in a thin line... the way she knew him, utterly, countering every blow almost before he'd struck it, caught once more in the deadly dance they had sparred so many times before with the movements almost second nature to them now. They knew each other so deeply that each counter was instinctive, each trick with its own tell... even as they danced, he knew she would be his downfall.

It seemed almost poetic, in a way, and they had discussed often enough although it had been with a childish innocence then which was gone now, wiped away by the years and washed clean by blood. They had promised each other an ending, a peace if it was necessary. The alternatives were torture which would end in death only when permitted, and though he would hesitate to call it love, whatever it was which had existed between them made it impossible for him to even conceive of leaving her to that fate. She had promised him the same, and it had brought him some comfort in his twisted existence, just as her presence always had. It was a secret trust they shared which had never been spoken, and which surely no longer existed... but it was fitting that she should be his death. She had always been his successor, his better... and he had helped to train her. Wasn't it said that the student had truly mastered the arts the days they bested their master? He would give her a true fight, but the outcome was foregone. If not today, then another day. His masters had decided that SHIELD would fall, and she was an obstacle to that which they could not have anticipated. 

Seeing her again was the first spark of something in him which had been dead so long he had believed it gone. He had been certain that after she left, after the empty years of wipes and storage in dusty vaults and stasis tanks, that they had finally succeeded in leaving him nothing but an empty shell into which they could pour their ideals, their orders, their plans... he was meant to be a weapon, nothing more, and they had treated him like it. 

As the Cold War had ended they had moved underground and funding had shrunk. He still had a purpose, and a reputation fierce enough to make him an invaluable symbol and a prospect to strike terror into the hearts of those who inconvenienced his masters, but they had no inclination to house and feed him when it wasn't necessary and so the tank had been the option of choice. He was also told it was to do with Natalya's departure. The amount of time they had spent together, associating, working, meant that he was under great suspicion of being a traitor. The decision had been made to step up the frequency of his wipes, and he submitted, each time almost hoping that it would remove every trace of her but knowing that it wouldn't. She was as much a part of this thing they had created as the metal limb with Lenin's Star emblazoned brightly across it, lest he forget that he was a thing and nothing more, branded like an animal.

He faced her down with guns at his sides and knives in his hands. He had always preferred the personal touch, and so had she. They had spent hours working on her fighting together, training while the others slept or were otherwise occupied. It had paid off. And besides, no matter how this ended, though he was sure he already knew, he owed her the intimacy of his own hand at least. There was more humanity in that than a gunshot, whatever humanity he had left.

She did not fight alone though, and that impressed him most of all. She had always preferred to work alone, and with what she had been trained to do, that had made the most sense. Sometimes they had worked as a pair but this... this was different. There was a sniper in support, somebody else calling the shots who had a better overview of the situation... and a man in a mockery of the stars and stripes, cowl over his head, shield in his hand. Never had he thought to see Natalya working alongside Captain America. He wanted to tell himself that it was some kind of undercover mission, that she was seeking to bring them down from within, but the truth was that he didn't give a shit about furthering the cause of Communism anymore. And he could recognise when she was acting.

She wasn't acting now, their teamwork, their coordination was too seamless, and he ached briefly for the days when he had been the other person... and then the Captain turned and Soldier saw a face which was burned into his memory. They had been taught to hate the flag, to hate America and everything it stood for. Captain America had been a great symbol, but he had been lost in the Great Patriotic War and had merely been a propaganda figure as far as the others had been concerned. Seeing him in the flesh was strange enough, and the first response was to assume that this was some kind of publicity stunt, a suit and a mask so the name would never die but be passed on... except that in the course of the battle the cowl had been knocked back, and that was a face he recognised.

He did not know where from, he did not understand, but there was no time for hesitation or confusion in the plan and although he could improvise it frustrated him. Planning things was the only method he had of exerting control over his actions and what befell him. 

He approached, but he could not strike, those blue eyes boring deep into his soul and he felt like he was falling, falling all over again... Natalya wheeled, saw him, called out a warning and approached... there was a sting in his neck and everything went black. He had always dreamed his end would be nobler than this. She had not even shown him the mercy of death, instead he was captured. For the moment, Soldier was not sure whether that was the better option for all that she had seemed convinced.

He ran over and over the events in his mind, trying to place that face. His mind had supplied him with a name: Steve, and he tried it over and over again in his mind. It matched the face, of that he was sure. He never forgot a face. But Captain America, or Steve Rogers as he had been, was dead. For some reason the thought of him being dead gave him pain rather than joy. Was this some new programming? Had SHIELD plans of their own for him? Or was this just some kind of psychological torture to rip him apart from the inside out? He was not sure, but then, he never had been. And he was not sure he cared anymore, either. 

The cell was comfortable, though his limb was not. He was half surprised that it was still attached. It was one of the few thought processes he was capable of, but it seemed strange to leave a feared and well known assassin with such an easily removable weapon. They could not deweaponise him completely, could not vanish his training. Even if it were so easy to wipe the memories in his brain, his muscles would know, would ache, would settle back into routine easily enough. The choice to leave him with a metal prosthetic which could hit harder, do so much more damage then seemed a strange one. Particularly because if there was anything left of his little Natalya, if she had any authority at all in these matters, he would have expected her to remove it, knowing as she did how it pained him. 

Steve. He tried the name over and over in his mind, and though he did not understand why, he was getting the greatest sense that he must go and see him as a matter of urgency. He could not get anywhere, of course, but there was a driving need to meet Steve which was beginning to confuse him. It seemed like he would hold the key to unlocking all the secrets he had carried forever with no explanation. There was something ironic in the key to unlocking the best Soviet assassin (bar Natalya, of course, but she had left, thank god) being Captain America, but for now he would not question it. He wanted, needed answers too much to jeopardise that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGPAv1Hq2-g  
> http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/falloutboy/themightyfall.html


	9. Miss Missing You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying to piece together a fractured identity is one of the hardest things to do, when you feel like you're letting those around you down.

The blond man had come everyday. It turned out that Steve was indeed his name, and that resonated somehow in Soldier's mind. He came every day and sat on the other side of the glass and told him stories. He talked for hours, not caring whether Soldier was listening or not. Honestly, he did. It gave him something to do in the long hours of nothingness which this captivity was. He wasn't sure yet if that was better or worse than the torture he was accustomed to.

He wasn't entirely sure either why he wasn't being tortured. He wondered whether Natalya had said something, whether it was mercy, whether they thought they could use him. He would be happy enough to work for them if that was what they wanted. His services were for sale these days with no great cause to serve, and though his masters might grouse about his loss, there would be no major attempt to recover him which might jeopardise SHIELD's resources. It would be an intelligent decision on that front to keep him, any other reasoning aside. 

He found himself wanting to stay anyway, though he was confused by their seeming interest in the man rather than the weapon. It had been a long time since anyone had concerned themselves with his humanity, so long that it hurt. The problem was that what flashes he had were of this man who sat so patiently, watching and waiting, with no signs of tiring or resentment... nothing but joy, as one who was reunited with something or someone they had believed lost forever.

From what Natalya had to say to him, this was more or less the truth. She came too, though not as often as Steve did, and tried to help him piece together what was going on.

His name was Bucky Barnes, or to be more precise, James Buchanan Barnes, though that was a bit too much of a mouthful, as Natalya said. She was Natasha now too, and it was hard to parse that with the image in his mind of the young woman he had watched grow up into something fiercely beautiful. She still had that edge, but it was not so finely honed, and the softness of humanity did her more favours than distance ever had.

Natasha had not been the one to tell him his name, though. That had been Steve. The first time he had come, he had practically run to the glass, his palms pressed against it, and called out this name which was not his... except the determination in his eyes and some long buried memory stirring at the sound of it made him question whether this could possibly be what he had been searching for all along.

He had not always reacted well to Steve's visits. He had raged, violent and vicious, but the man had been unfazed. The reaction had been far more powerful than it might be reasonable to expect to the man out of uniform. He was not Captain America, he was just Steve Rogers... and Soldier had no qualms about killing civilians as a rule, but the hatred wasn't there. That had been programmed for the symbol, and this man was more than a symbol. Soldier had always wondered what it would be like to be more than a symbol, and now he finally had a chance to learn.

Every time he saw Steve now, it hurt. It hurt but he could not stay away, he could not feign sleep, he would go to the glass and listen to every story, let these pieces of identity fall back into raw and bleeding places, forming some kind of identity. He did not feel like he knew this man, but as time went on and he learned more and more, the programming began to fade and he felt less and less like Soldier too, stuck in some sort of purgatory between identities. 

He fought for the good times, the flashes of light and warmth and games in Brooklyn streets choking on the hot air of the summer bouncing back from the concrete. He remembered snatches of music and scents and laughter, flashes of what it had been like to be human, and he clung to them desperately despite the pain, like shards of glass digging into his hands. Sometimes he swore that the memories hurt enough to cut, but he had not blood to bleed after all these years. 

There were parts of him which whispered that it would be so easy to forget it all, to revert to being a blank slate and simply let them program him again, let them use him and manipulate him... but there was some more fundamental part, buried in his gut which seized greedily onto every fragment it got, no matter how small. He wished he could build on it, wished he could learn to feel again and remember everything when Steve obviously knew him. He felt like he was letting him down, failing him, betraying him, and it twisted like a knife in his gut in the most unexpected way. Loyalty was not something he was designed to feel, and yet he was desperate not to disappoint this soldier, this... friend. He was latching onto him in the frantic search for any kind of purpose and yet this was one he could not fulfil.

He wondered what it was like to miss someone. Had he missed Natalya? In a way, probably, but they had wiped him so many times most of the emotion had been removed or suppressed and though he had thoguht of her fondly it had never ached like a full body blow.

Steve had told him how losing him had hurt him so badly he was numb, ached heavy inside, stopped him sleeping, eating, cost him the will to live... and the man who had been Soldier fought to understand. He tried so hard, but he could not wrap his mind around the concept and it drove him to tears of frustration night after night which Natasha tried to soothe when she had time. There was nothing she could say, and nothing he would have heard from her anyway, but nights spent together rather than alone were some kind of balm to the void which had once been a soul. Perhaps it was more a scar than a void, one which was being ripped open in the hopes of cleaner healing, though he did not know whether it was too long gone for that to be possible.

He understood that Steve would have faced him down, would have offered no resistance as he had pulled the trigger, and that, more than anything, broke his heart. The thought that a man he did not know could be so confident in him, and value him so much that a world without the person he had been was not worth living in, that someone, an enemy he had been programmed to hate might trust him that much made him physically sick, drove him to remember, to strive for this memory... but Natasha told him night after night that he could never measure up to a memory. He knew it, but that did nothing to ease it at all.

If he was ever to leave the cell he would have to prove that he was not dangerous, that he would work with them, that he had beaten the programming... and he did not know if that would ever be possible. Strangely, the thought of never getting out didn't bother him too much. It would be peaceful. He had more than earned the chance for a little bit of peace after years of blood and fire, following orders he could not control.

He had told Steve that one day, and the news, the confession had been greeted with a shrug and a dazzling smile.

"To be honest, Buck, I just want you to be happy... and after everything you've been through, that might not be possible. But if a chance to have some peace is all it takes, then I'm glad you have that. You and I... we've both done our service. Normal men and women serve their time and they get too old and they retire with dignity, but not us, Buck. We'll always be in fighting form, and that means we don't get the chance at that peace the same way everybody else does. And I can't sit by while there are people I can protect, bullies I can stop... but maybe the day will come when I choose not to fight anymore too. You've had seventy years more of it than me, and you have blood on your hands and screams in your head that I don't, and I don't envy you them. But whatever happens, I'll keep coming back. I'll keep coming to see you, because sometimes you almost smile when you see me coming, and that gives me a bit of hope that maybe one day you'll remember what we had between us. If you don't, that's fine too, because I believe in you, Buck, and I owe you this much at least after all you did for me. I love you Buck, and I always did. That's not going to stop now just because... just because you don't remember."

That was the first time he had cried in front of someone other than Natasha for as long as he could remember, not that that said much. It was also the day he resolved that, no matter how much it hurt, he would fight for the memories that had been taken from him, because if Steve was willing to do that much for him, then he owed the man something in return, even if he would never be the friend Steve had mourned for all these years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVOBh7ItPFI  
> http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/falloutboy/missmissingyou.html


	10. Save Rock and Roll

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rehabilitation, and the realisation of how some things will never change.

He wasn't sure how it had happened. He didn't know whether it was Steve, or Natasha, or the other man in a suit who had plead his case, but SHIELD was allowing him out, provisionally at least. He had been moved into the tower where the others lived, on the grounds that if they needed to restrain him, or run any tests, it was just as well equppied as SHIELD, if not better, with the advantage of not actively being a cell which might condition patterns of behaviour. It was viewed as a kind of rehabilitation. And the added bonus was that Tony Stark had taken one look at his arm and glared at it with such disdain and contempt that Bucky wondered what he had done to offend him.

"Well that will have to go for a start. Jesus Barnes, you really can't tell me that thing is comfortable?"

He was going by Barnes again now. The only one who really called him Bucky was Steve, but he was okay with that. Steve was the only one who had known him before, and Barnes was a kind of halfway house. It was his old name, his real name, but not the part he had been known by before. It was something he could build a new identity around, use as a foundation from where the old one had been stripped away.

And Tony had built him a new arm, and Barton had insulted him every two minutes until they'd had a friendly shooting contest down at the range, which had ended with Clint teaching him how to use a bow. It was oddly like a family again, and he didn't quite know how to adjust to the absolute lack of military structure. There was still a structure, sure, but he was effectively at a loose end. He took to the range, to the library and the private movie theatres, trying to learn what he could about the man he had been and the things he had missed. Sure, unlike Steve he had lived through the intervening years (for a given value of lived), but he was still largely ignorant about things happening outside the confines of the Soviet Union. That was how they'd liked it. It had made their lives considerably easier to keep the whole population in ignorance, and besides, why would they share such information with a weapon?

The Avengers had been called out one day, and Steve had invited him along for the ride. He wasn't sure if he was meant to go, what SHIELD would make of it, but he had lived so long and survived so much that surrendering personal decisions and autonomy to another organisation, even if this one claimed that it wanted to help him, was not something he was willing to do. Help might have been something they were offering, but they were taking control with their other hand at the same time, and he would have been blind not to see it. He was a threat, and they wanted to manage him. He couldn't blame them. They were right to want him under control. Still.

The fighting had been good for him, it had woken him up, sent adrenaline surging through his veins, made him feel even more alive again. He could move in ways he hadn't been able to before, set free by the prosthetic which did not rub or burn, which fitted him well and contained a weapon of its own. He had been a dirty fighter as a kid, grown up with hand to hand in street scraps, and though his time in the army had taught him how to use a gun well enough that the Soviets had classed him as a sniper, over the years he had come to prefer hand to hand. It was more personal, it allowed him to work out his aggression, his anger, his confusion. He was not so much out of control that he would go and hunt people down to beat them black, blue and bloody - he had seen enough abuse in his life already that it was alien to his nature to cause more, but he was a soldier, a fighter to his core, and it felt right to be back on the line.

He hadn't thought of fighting again, and he knew if he had refused, none of them would have thought less of him, but it wasn't so much that he wanted to, as that he couldn't stop himself. It wasn't about the release, it was about years of muscle memory, conditioning which went down to the bone and could never be broken. It was about the freedom of movement he could find when he was engaged in combat, and the thrill of the adrenaline which raced through him, no longer dulled by Red Room's brain washing. Even though there was a part of him which screamed to leave this all behind, to stain his hands with no more blood and do something, anything, to begin to atone for everything he had done wrong, he knew in his heart that he would be fighting till the end. The only difference was this time he was on the right side.

The decision wasn't that different from Natalya's, but this time he was not on his own. He was a part of something bigger than himself again, and that was something which still surprised him, still confused him. The slaps on the back as they headed back to the tower, the group pizza order which included him without question, the banter over comms which he had been so wary of joining in with for the first few times. 

He wasn't sure why the rest of them did this, what had driven them to be a part of this team and 'fight crime' as Clint put it, like they did. Steve did it because he had never known anything else. It gave him a purpose, and allowed him to do what he had always done, protect people from bullies, without being tarred with the military brush and all its awkward connotations in the modern world. Bucky had been pretty impressed to discover Steve getting involved in modern politics, and even more so when it was opposing the great institutions. Sure they'd grown up in a great time of political upheaval and liberal reform, but Steve seemed to have embraced the community spirit of the great depression and the idea that change came from the bottom up, and he was leading initiatives, lending his time, his image, his strength, to things that mattered. But the Avengers was top of the list, and it allowed him to be everything he had once been, only better, more direct.

Tony's reasons and Natasha's were not that dissimilar from his own. They wanted some way of silencing the screams that kept them awake at night, something that would wash the blood away. They and Clint were all there because, no matter where they went, trouble and death and chaos seemed to follow them, but at least here they faced it with others at their back and that made all the difference. Each one of them was used to fighting alone. This gave them the chance to be more.

Bruce did it because it was the only place Hulk was welcomed without question, and Thor found a home among people who didn't exactly fit with the rest of the world. He was a warrior and a prince to the bone, but although he had placed the Earth under his protection, he would never have been able to live a normal life anywhere on it. Here, being normal wasn't a concern.

Bucky, Bruce, Thor, Natasha, Clint, Tony, Steve... all of them were motivated by desperation. That was what had brought them together, held them together... maybe there were bonds there now which were more than that, but no matter what happened, they would remain a team because of the fear of being anything else, anything less. None of them had anything outside this, except perhaps Thor, and the thought of losing it only made them pull together tighter. But when they did pull together, they were a force to be reckoned with. Bucky was glad they had been prepared to embrace him, even if SHIELD hadn't been too keen, but it turned out that Steve had been right, and this was exactly what he needed. It gave him a purpose he'd lacked, and even though the job wasn't that different, he was doing it as a person, not as a weapon, and that was the last part of what he had needed to tie him together. 

The team loved each other, in broken ways, in ways that didn't quite make sense and fit together with jagged edges which dug in all wrong or rubbed the wrong way. Each of them was there because they had had no other option, for whatever reason, and even though it shouldn't work, it did. Nobody owed anybody any explanation, and they were more free than they had ever been to be themselves. There were no orders, no rules, not anymore, or not the same way. There were the general unspoken rules of how to live together as an experiment in what happened when a group of broken people with PTSD were thrown into the same building, but... outside of combat situations where someone had to take charge, they were free to stand up against everything about the world which had left them with no other option. They stood up for the broken, just like them, and it felt good to be doing the right thing again. 

He had only come back for selfish reasons, as a last ditch attempt at some kind of recovery, to help out a friend, but there was no going back. They were a team of misfits who had found where they belonged, and there was no greater source of strength than that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5aVkVdFfLs  
> http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/falloutboy/saverockandroll.html


	11. Alone Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story comes full circle, because death is not the end, and some bonds are stronger even than that. No matter what you've done in life, with true friends you will always be alone together rather than truly alone, however dark the days may get.

The cell was dark most days, but the temperature was comfortable enough. Most people probably would have called it cold, but after years in Siberia such things became relative. Besides, it was some gesture of courtesy for his efforts, for his legacy as a war hero, as Captain America's best friend... or something like that anyway.

He remembered the day Steve had died. He remembered how he had felt numb, and the numbness had never really gone away. He had wondered for so long whether all the years as Soldier had made him immune to death, to really understanding the effects of it. He wondered whether it went beyond that to the time in the army and the way death had become unavoidable. It was never possible not to mourn the death of a comrade, let alone someone as close to him as Steve had been, but grief required complex emotions he didn't have access to. There were some who argued that it was a fundamental part of human nature, and that was true enough to a degree, but there were parts of his mind that either didn't fit together right, or just didn't work anymore. Those parts meant that he could take all the grief and lock it up tight in a small box, tucked away at the corner of his mind where he could almost forget it existed. Almost, but not quite. 

It hadn't been long after that when the team had splintered, scattered across the globe, and rather than running again he had elected to take the dignified option. He had come quietly, when SHIELD had come looking for him, no longer trusting him without his anchor there, the lynch pin who had held together what was left of his reconstructed sanity. Because he had been so cooperative, they had afforded him certain luxuries. They weren't unpleasant at all - the relationship with the guards was friendly enough and on the good days they had a certain camaraderie. On the bad days they hardly spoke, and the bad days were becoming more frequent. Either way he gave them more trouble now his heart was finally broken for good than he ever had when his spirit was still intact.

For all that he was telling himself he didn't miss Steve, there were little tells in his behaviour which gave away the fact that that was not quite true. He wasn't sure if it was better or worse not being able to lie to himself anymore. Normal people used that as a coping strategy, but that avenue had not been open to him for a long time. 

If he closed his eyes, he could see him. Bucky wasn't sure if it was memories, or a hallucination, or what. He wasn't sure if he was going crazy, going sane, or simply dying. His time was coming to an end, and he accepted it gracefully. There was nothing to be gained from fighting, nothing to live for anymore, and at least this way his death would be peaceful. Before, the best he could have hoped for was an end at Natasha's hands, and he knew, if he asked, that avenue was still open to him. But the thought of a quiet end, of some semblance of humanity to his last breath, gave him hope that perhaps beyond, if there was a beyond, he might be forgiven and allowed to start over. At the very least, he was sure he would see Steve on the other side, whole and smiling, and he would be able to remember. He would be able to cast off the darkness and be the friend Steve had always deserved. 

There had been a few visions of Steve in this last week. Once, Bucky had rolled over where he was lying on his bed and seen Steve standing by a cot on the other side of the room, packing his kit bag.

He had looked up and smiled, and Bucky had asked him where he was going. 

Steve had just shrugged, shook his head, and smiled... and Bucky had moved to sit up, to pack his own stuff, because he was damned if Steve would go somewhere without him. Steve had proved time and again that he couldn't be trusted out in the big wide world on his own. 

The moment his feet had touched the ground from his cot, the vision had vanished, and there was only a bare wall and empty space. 

Tonight was different, though. Tonight was quiet, not even disturbed by the rounds of the guards. They didn't bother much these days, only answering obvious distress. They more or less trusted their prisoners to take care of themselves. None of them were much trouble. Bucky wasn't planning to attract their attention either way. 

He had eaten his dinner, washed his face and hands, cleaned his teeth, used the lavatory... and then he had sat down on the bed and packed the few things he had kept into his old kit bag, setting it at the foot of his bed before he lay down to wait, hands folded on his chest. He could feel himself fading, and it was a nice feeling, a freedom... it felt like he was moving away from the cold towards bright sunlight, real warmth like he hadn't felt in years. Maybe they were right about the idea of death being going into the light. There was nothing to keep him in the darkness anymore, he had lived his whole life there. The freedom from pain, from obligation and memory and sin was welcome, and as he stepped forward he saw Steve standing by the path waiting for him. 

"I knew you'd come." There was that smile again, and the blue eyes like the summer sky Bucky had missed desperately without even realising.

He shrugged, and it was with surprise that he registered the lack of prosthetic. He glanced down and back up with his mouth open, but closed it before he could comment. Looked like this was the final trip. He wouldn't be checking in with the guards in the morning, greeting the new shift and hearing all the stories they told when they thought he couldn't hear them. It was long past time he'd walked this road, and wherever it led, he knew they would be walking it together. 

"Where are we going?"

Steve shrugged,

"Who knows. Back to the beginning I guess?"

Bucky shivered at that, unsure if he could do it all again, wary of the fire, the blood, the pain and death which lay along his route without a doubt.

Then he felt Steve's hand in his and remembered that whatever was along the way, he wasn't walking it alone. Everything they had said about facing judgement, or whatever, anything that lay beyond alone and without anything to hide behind was wrong, and somehow this felt right. He and Steve had been together and apart, but somehow they had never forgotten each other. They had been drawn together time after time, and now, rather than facing the way ahead apart, they faced it alone together. 

Bucky glanced up at the sun, and then to Steve at his side, taking it all in for a long moment before he took a deep breath and set his foot down on the path that would take them through who knew what or where on their journey back to the beginning.

As they walked, he felt the years fall away, as if he were shedding layers of masks and lies and illusion. He set down guilt and death and memories which had kept him awake, standing taller, and when he next met Steve's eyes, that bright innocent smile found its match in a cocky grin which had not been seen in eighty years. 

This may have been the end, but at the end of all things, they were together, just as the beginning, and the story had come full circle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFhEBmNwX_E  
> http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/falloutboy/alonetogether.html
> 
> Thank you to all of you who have come on this journey with me. Hopefully you can find a bit of hope in the heartbreak of this ending. It's possibly a rather odd tale of redemption that ends in death, but I think it's fitting.
> 
> Thank you for all the subscriptions, the kudos... I'd be so grateful if, now that it's finished, a few of you might take the time to comment, but I am grateful for all the attention this fic has received. Thank you so much.
> 
> ~*Angel*~


End file.
